After roughly 1,700 miles and numerous close calls due to the horribly weak braking performance of the Tektro Novella mechanical disc brakes that were OEM on my 35 pound Trek Wahoo 29er hardtail, I upgraded to Shimano M445 hydraulic disc brakes and the improvement in braking performance was the difference between night and day. They’ve been awesome over the last several hundred miles of road use and my only regret is not having made the upgrade to hydraulic disc brakes years ago.

If I were to ever revert back to mechanical disc brakes (for their shear simplicity), I wouldn’t purchase anything lesser than Avid BB7’s, but I’m altogether sold on my Shimano M445 hydraulic disc brakes. It's awesome to finally acquire stellar braking performance.